They made the grade but can’t find a school

New teachers face big hurdles as student population shrinks and substitute roster grows

Rachel Lebowitz became a teacher at a preschool and after-school daycare after having a tough time getting into the public school system. (INGRID BULMER / Staff)

IT WAS A LIFE she couldn’t bear to lead any longer. Rachel Lebowitz never knew, from day to day, if she had a job. She’d get up, often at 6 a.m., cellphone at the ready, and turn on

the computer in her Halifax residence. She’d log into AESOP, the automated system that lists all the substitute teacher jobs in Nova Scotia. And then she’d wait.

Once in a while, her phone would ring. “Do you accept this job?” AESOP would ask.

By the time Lebowitz pressed the button that answered yes, it was often too late.

“I’m sorry, that job is already taken,” AESOP would reply.

If Lebowitz was really lucky, she’d get a phone call with a real person on the other end of the line, a vice-principal at a school where she had subbed in the past, offering her a job for the day.

On the rare days it worked out, Lebowitz would spend the day actually doing what she dreams of — teaching a classroom full of children.

But those days were few and far between.

Lebowitz estimates that over the last school year, she got about 20 days of work as a substitute teacher.

“It was pretty crazy,” she says. “I think 20 might even be generous, when I think about it. It was really low.”

And Lebowitz has done everything right.

She has an undergraduate degree, a master’s degree and a post-degree education program under her belt. She has experience. And passion.

She has done what many aspiring teachers in the province do — visited schools, dropped off business cards and resumes, smiled and shook the hands of all the right people.

She has tried to make an impression, fought for any opportunity to make a personal connection at schools in the hopes of landing a substitute gig, which could lead to a term position, which eventually, maybe, someday, could lead to a full-time teaching job.

But after a year of extraordinary effort and limited reward, Lebowitz, 37, has decided to abandon, at least for now, her dream of teaching in the public school system.

“I can’t wait around forever,” she says.

For many education graduates, the path to a job in the public school system is labyrinthine and frustrating.

The usual trajectory that new teachers follow is to substitute, then apply for term positions — temporary contracts to fill in for teachers on leave — and eventually apply for permanent jobs.

But there are stumbling blocks at every turn.

As of late August, there were 1,835 teachers on the substitute list for the Halifax regional school board. On any given day last year, only 17 per cent of those substitutes were used, and the highest percentage used in a single day was 26 per cent.

Some new teachers have suggested capping the substitute list or implementing a screening process — such as interviewing prospective substitutes — to reduce the supply and improve teachers’ chances of finding work.

But Carole Olsen, who until recently was the superintendent of the Halifax school board but is now the deputy minister of education, says the board has rejected that idea in order to leave all options open to new teachers.

“We choose not to do that,” Olsen says. “So, it becomes a graduating teacher’s choice as to whether or not they want to be on the list and stay on the list and take the work that becomes available.”

The Halifax board recently introduced a strategy to limit the number of substitutes. Since last fall, prospective substitutes are obliged to attend an orientation session before they can get onto the substitute list.

Those sessions are held about four times a year and are limited to 50 teachers, so only about 200 will be added to the list this school year. In 2010-11, before the orientation sessions were mandatory, 710 new teachers were added to the list.

Getting into the orientation session is now yet another hurdle for new teachers to clear.

And the long-term prospects aren’t great, either. Of the active substitutes across the province in the 2003-04 school year, only 29 per cent had landed permanent or probationary positions five years later. Just 10 per cent received temporary term positions.

During the 2008-09 school year, substitutes in the province worked on average for 57 days.

Some say the number of teachers produced and certified in the province is simply too high for the demand.

“There are no new positions,” says Shelley Morse, president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union. “So it’s really hard for new people to get in because those jobs are no longer there.”

The oversupply of teachers is felt most acutely at the Halifax board.

Last month, the board posted a job for a Grade 2 teacher. Three hundred candidates applied.

“From our perspective, we have a large pool of candidates to draw on,” says Tracy O’Kroneg, the co-ordinator of human resources for the school board. “But I do understand the frustration that new graduates might be feeling right now.”

Jobs become available in the Halifax board when teachers retire, leave the profession or die. But those openings are becoming scarcer. Due to budget cuts, the Halifax board slashed the equivalent of 170 full-time jobs this fall.

Five years ago, O’Kroneg said, there would have been 300 to 400 term positions available. Last school year, the board had 157 term positions open, and only seven of those were for full-time, full-year teaching jobs.

New teachers hoping for a spike in retirements should think again.

A new report on teacher supply and demand that the Education Department released this month notes that the number of teachers who retire or go on disability pension is expected to drop to roughly 270 in 2017 from about 340 this year.

Many lay the blame for the glut of new teachers on universities.

“I think it’s a cash cow,” Lebowitz says. “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous how many people are let into education programs. I think that the universities are accepting way too many people and that that really needs to be limited.”

Mount Saint Vincent and Acadia universities say the number of bachelor of education grads has, in fact, fallen over the past few years.

The Mount has conferred roughly 10 fewer bachelor of education degrees per year and Acadia has reduced the number of seats by about 20 in the last couple of years.

But both universities say those reductions are due to decreased demand from students. Applications to the program have fallen in recent years, administrators say, and the demographics of those who apply have also shifted. Education programs are seeing more applications from those with a background in French, sciences and math, and fewer from those with teachables in English and social studies.

But universities say limiting the number of seats in bachelor of education programs isn’t fair to those who want to pursue the degree.

“That would be a type of gatekeeping, and I think that would, in many ways, take away choice from people and take away a lot of valuable people that go into society,” says Mary Jane Harkins, director of teacher education at Mount Saint Vincent.

And, she cautions that there won’t always be a glut of new teachers seeking jobs. “I think the demographics will go around again,” Harkins says.

“In other professions, they have reduced numbers and it has caused problems down the road where we have limited people in certain professions that are needed.”

As for the suggestion that the province should limit the number of teacher certifications, officials say that won’t work either.

“Due to labour mobility laws, we are mandated to make sure if they have the right qualifications they do get a certificate,” says Education Minister Ramona Jennex.

“That is a legal issue. If they have the credentials, and if they come through for certification, then we certify them.”

So, for now, new graduates keen on teaching in this province’s public schools must submit to the vagaries of the market and a system that seems perennially unnavigable.

“It’s kind of sad for me,” Lebowitz says.

“I’m sure that there are some people who would be really good teachers, myself included, who are going to have to give up on the system.”